If you’re thinking of starting a blog or niche website, you’re probably curious about how much it can potentially earn.
While every website is different, so too is every niche and site operator. The entire process of building a blog is incredibly nuanced.
There is NO framework that can guarantee absolute success, but this one mega course comes really close, in my opinion. I also recommend this course if you’re more intermediate to advanced.
With that said, I’ve created this blogging income report series to help track my personal journey. Your journey could be very different.
NOTE: This income report does NOT include any income from my Minted Empire brand (this blog, my newsletter, and my YouTube Channel). Minted Empire is something I do in my spare time, and any income I earn here usually ends up being reinvested into my niche sites.
Let’s dive in!
Overview of April 2023’s Performance
Disappointing performance overall due to falling ad rates despite increased traffic.
I am doing something about this and I’ll reveal more soon because I have a few tricks (long game) up my sleeve.
I did a MASSIVE content cull and have updated the posts published below. If you’ve been following previous income reports closely, you’ll notice the total post count has fallen. There was a lot of dead wood on two of the sites, so I got rid of it.
This content cull might warrant its own case study in the future, so watch this space.
Site Breakdown
This income report covers 6 4 websites because I sold 2 in early 2023.
I own many sites but I have 4 sites that I’m actively working on.
(If you don’t want to read the detailed breakdown for each site, you can skip ahead to the summary.)
Site 1: Performance Report
Started: June 2020
Niche: Hobby / Tech
Monetization: Display Ads (Ezoic) & Affiliate (mostly Amazon Associates)
| Month | New Posts | Total Posts | Pageviews | Ads $ | Affiliate $ | Total $ |
| Jun ’20 | 1 | 1 | 202 | – | – | – |
| Jul ’20 | – | 1 | 336 | – | – | – |
| Aug ’20 | 4 | 5 | 48 | – | – | – |
| Sep ’20 | – | 5 | 22 | – | – | – |
| Oct ’20 | – | 5 | 54 | – | – | – |
| Nov ’20 | 1 | 6 | 254 | – | – | – |
| Dec ’20 | 1 | 7 | 271 | – | – | – |
| Jan ’21 | 5 | 12 | 434 | $1 | – | $1 |
| Feb ’21 | 4 | 16 | 536 | $3 | – | $3 |
| Mar ’21 | 6 | 22 | 2,643 | $14 | $1 | $15 |
| Apr ’21 | 6 | 28 | 4,504 | $34 | $46 | $80 |
| May ’21 | 8 | 36 | 7,601 | $67 | $382 | $449 |
| Jun ’21 | 3 | 39 | 7,117 | $80 | $286 | $366 |
| Jul ’21 | 39 | 9,534 | $125 | $383 | $508 | |
| Aug ’21 | 3 | 42 | 12,903 | $148 | $394 | $542 |
| Sep ’21 | 42 | 15,336 | $175 | $406 | $581 | |
| Oct ’21 | 3 | 45 | 16,735 | $206 | $701 | $907 |
| Nov ’21 | 21 | 66 | 19,458 | $346 | $376 | $722 |
| Dec ’21 | 34 | 100 | 14,170 | $280 | $473 | $753 |
| Jan ’22 | 12 | 112 | 12,713 | $173 | $210 | $383 |
| Feb ’22 | 112 | 10,899 | $137 | $348 | $485 | |
| Mar ’22 | 112 | 13,587 | $154 | $516 | $670 | |
| Apr ’22 | 4 | 116 | 21,844 | $184 | $430 | $614 |
| May ’22 | 22 | 138 | 29,626 | $305 | $347 | $652 |
| Jun ’22 | 16 | 154 | 30,894 | $492 | $499 | $991 |
| Jul ’22 | 6 | 160 | 39,760 | $546 | $830 | $1,376 |
| Aug ’22 | 5 | 165 | 45,232 | $731 | $671 | $1,402 |
| Sep ’22 | 7 | 172 | 43,012 | $917 | $609 | $1,526 |
| Oct ’22 | 10 | 182 | 39,881 | $860 | $905 | $1,765 |
| Nov ’22 | 1 | 183 | 35,150 | $985 | $1,130 | $2,116 |
| Dec ’22 | 183 | 37,227 | $720 | $1,465 | $2,186 | |
| Jan ’23 | 3 | 186 | 38,570 | $468 | $511 | $979 |
| Feb ’23 | – | 186 | 38,410 | $513 | $519 | $1,032 |
| Mar ’23 | – | 186 | 25,631 | $342 | $498 | $840 |
| Apr ’23 | 31 | 217 | 25,989 | $241 | $433 | $674 |
Site 2: Performance Report
Started: September 2020
Niche: Lifestyle
Monetization: Display Ads (Ezoic), Other Affiliate
| Month | New Posts | Total Posts | Pageviews | Ads $ | Affiliate $ | Total $ |
| Sep ’20 | 10 | 10 | 142 | – | – | – |
| Oct ’20 | 9 | 19 | 571 | $1 | – | $1 |
| Nov ’20 | 19 | 466 | $4 | – | $4 | |
| Dec ’20 | 19 | 542 | $9 | $5 | $14 | |
| Jan ’21 | 2 | 21 | 499 | $5 | $1 | $6 |
| Feb ’21 | 6 | 27 | 513 | $5 | $4 | $9 |
| Mar ’21 | 4 | 31 | 1,627 | $7 | $1 | $8 |
| Apr ’21 | 31 | 2,492 | $12 | $32 | $44 | |
| May ’21 | 5 | 36 | 3,690 | $41 | $67 | $108 |
| Jun ’21 | 7 | 43 | 3,938 | $53 | $63 | $116 |
| Jul ’21 | 11 | 54 | 5,870 | $91 | $7 | $98 |
| Aug ’21 | 1 | 55 | 6,529 | $92 | $17 | $109 |
| Sep ’21 | 55 | 6,367 | $91 | $3 | $94 | |
| Oct ’21 | 55 | 6,503 | $91 | $7 | $98 | |
| Nov ’21 | 55 | 6,114 | $110 | $106 | $216 | |
| Dec ’21 | 55 | 4,919 | $88 | – | $88 | |
| Jan ’22 | 55 | 6,618 | $110 | $36 | $146 | |
| Feb ’22 | 3 | 58 | 6,473 | $90 | $35 | $125 |
| Mar ’22 | 16 | 74 | 8,115 | $96 | $1 | $97 |
| Apr ’22 | 7 | 81 | 9,219 | $134 | $61 | $195 |
| May ’22 | 6 | 87 | 13,639 | $223 | $33 | $256 |
| Jun ’22 | 8 | 95 | 18,779 | $350 | $172 | $522 |
| Jul ’22 | 7 | 102 | 21,624 | $354 | $96 | $450 |
| Aug ’22 | 1 | 103 | 28,694 | $593 | $46 | $639 |
| Sep ’22 | 7 | 110 | 35,042 | $1,043 | $40 | $1,083 |
| Oct ’22 | 9 | 119 | 29,316 | $766 | $156 | $922 |
| Nov ’22 | 1 | 120 | 17,316 | $477 | $119 | $597 |
| Dec ’22 | 120 | 12,211 | $241 | $51 | $292 | |
| Jan ’23 | 120 | 15,514 | $266 | $13 | $279 | |
| Feb ’23 | 120 | 12,219 | $237 | $4 | $241 | |
| Mar ’23 | 120 | 16,223 | $333 | $12 | $345 | |
| Apr ’23 | 65 | 185 | 19,127 | $250 | $15 | $265 |
During the month of April 2023, I moved this site to a brand new domain. I acquired a live aged domain and redirected it to an acquisition page.
It seems to have worked, indexing has happened super quick and traffic is holding strong. No drop during the move (which is unusual, normally you’d see a slight drop in a domain migration). Early days yet, let’s see what happens.
Also updated the site theme and made it look much more like a brand.
Site 3: SOLD!
Site 4: SOLD!
Site 5: Performance Report
Started: January 2022 (with some seed content posted during Summer 2021)
Niche: Home Living
Monetization: Display Ads (Ezoic) & affiliate
| Month | New Posts | Total Posts | Pageviews | Ads $ | Affiliate $ | Total $ |
| Summer ’21 | 28 | 28 | 6,654 (July to Dec ’21) | – | – | – |
| Jan ’22 | 22 | 50 | 1,849 | – | – | – |
| Feb ’22 | 52 | 102 | 2,178 | – | – | – |
| Mar ’22 | 16 | 118 | 3,063 | – | – | – |
| Apr ’22 | 6 | 124 | 4,559 | $91 | – | $91 |
| May ’22 | 13 | 137 | 5,704 | $154 | – | $154 |
| Jun ’22 | 20 | 157 | 7,469 | $244 | – | $244 |
| Jul ’22 | 14 | 171 | 12,675 | $348 | $56 | $404 |
| Aug ’22 | 14 | 185 | 23,562 | $568 | $49 | $616 |
| Sep ’22 | 20 | 205 | 24,240 | $766 | $49 | $815 |
| Oct ’22 | 25 | 230 | 26,081 | $862 | $107 | $969 |
| Nov ’22 | 7 | 237 | 24,027 | $926 | $8 | $934 |
| Dec ’22 | 2 | 239 | 23,765 | $678 | $5 | $683 |
| Jan ’23 | 239 | 32,310 | $761 | $49 | $811 | |
| Feb ’23 | 239 | 29,492 | $670 | $111 | $781 | |
| Mar ’23 | 239 | 33,859 | $722 | $45 | $767 | |
| Apr ’23 | 11 | 250 | 33,935 | $567 | $69 | $636 |
This is a fresh domain with a relevant aged-domain redirected to a relevant silo on the site.
Site 6: Performance Report
Started: September 2022
Niche: Not disclosed
Monetization: Affiliate
| Month | New Posts | Total Posts | Pageviews | Ads $ | Affiliate $ | Total $ |
| Sep ’22 | 12 | 12 | 9 | – | – | – |
| Oct ’22 | 7 | 19 | 55 | – | – | – |
| Nov ’22 | 13 | 32 | 139 | – | – | – |
| Dec ’22 | 17 | 49 | 351 | – | – | – |
| Jan ’23 | 15 | 64 | 1,752 | – | $5 | $5 |
| Feb ’23 | 7 | 71 | 2,184 | – | $8 | $8 |
| Mar ’23 | 17 | 88 | 5,483 | – | $49 | $49 |
| Apr ’23 | 31 | 119 | 16,059 | – | $138 | $138 |
This is a fresh domain in a niche that I’m super passionate about. I’m very excited to see how far I can take this site.
This would also be a good website to start collecting email addresses and set up an auto-responder. I’m still considering doing this, but this recent email provider comparison from Jared at Weekend Growth got me thinking.
Income Summary
Overall Earnings This Month By Niche Site
- Site 1: $674 ( previous month $840 )
- Site 2: $265 ( previous month $345 )
- Site 5: $636 ( previous month $767 )
- Site 6: $138 ( previous month $49 )
Total Earnings From This Selection of Sites: $1,713 ( previous month $2,001 )
Niche Website Earnings by Source
- Ezoic Display Ads: $1,058 ( previous month $1,398 )
- Affiliate: $658 ( previous month $603)
Outgoings
Running any website or blog involves having expenses. I could run extremely lean and just have my hosting costs if I wanted.
However, I’m playing the long game, and I don’t mind paying for tools/services that save me time and mental energy and make the blogging journey a little easier.
Breakdown of Expenses For This Month
Like many others in the industry, I don’t view content costs as an expense. Investing in good content is exactly that – an investment in the site. I’ll list my content costs separately below.
Here’s a quick breakdown of my running costs this month:
- Editor: $520
- Virtual Assistant (VA) (OnlineJobs.ph) : $73
- Team Content Order Management (Trello) : $54
- Plagiarism Checker (CopyLeaks) : $35
- Domain (NameCheap) : $10
- Hosting (CloudWays) : $36
- Site Management / Backups (ManageWP) : $13
- Theme (GeneratePress) : $5 ($59 paid annually)
- Plugin: (Link Whisper) : $14 (I have a 10-site license)
- Affiliate Tables & Link Checker (Lasso): $111
- Premium fee for Ezoic : $170
- Social Media Scheduling (Metricool) : $12
- Graphics (Canva Pro) : $12
- Keyword Research (Ahrefs) : $99
- Rank Tracker (SERPRobot) : $10
Content Investment
I’ve built my own team of freelance writers. I manage them via Trello & Slack. I pay a maximum of 3 cents per word for the content they produce.
Oh how things change! I have changed how I produce content. I bought a lifetime deal for KoalaWriter which does an amazing job at creating first draft AI-assisted content. Sadly, the lifetime deal is no longer running. Read my KoalaWriter review that I’m working on.
I pay an editor $8 per article to review the content produced by KoalaWriter. She fact-checks the content and adds some human personality to the content. We’re at the early stages of this new production workflow, I’ll keep you updated.
Content Investment in Current Month
- Published a ton but my content writing cost was $0 thanks to the lifetime deal that I already availed of from KoalaWriter. This will provide 1,000,000 words per month if using GPT 3.5 or 200,000 words using GPT 4. That’s per month! Per life. Amazing deal.
- $197 on ZimmWriter Lifetime deal. Another awesome first draft creator. Still testing, but it’s looking great so far.
- My editor (human LOL) cost $520 this month.
That’s the end of the income report.
See you next month!